OnePlus 3's official render could be a decoy

This morning, a render of the much anticipated OnePlus 3 flagship phone (pictured left) has been making the rounds on the internet. We can confirm that this "leak" is legit as we also got it directly from OnePlus' China PR rep, who didn't say anything other than that this is a "OnePlus 3 render." But the company has clearly been seeding the same image to other Chinese media outlets as well, which is why we're smelling a decoy here -- a tactic often deployed by OnePlus' sister company, Vivo, to stir up hype before a product launch. Leaving the HTC-like design aside, we have a hard time believing that OnePlus would remove laser autofocus and dual-tone flash from its next flagship device; but hey, at least NFC is back, as hinted by the T-shaped antenna band.

If the render has any remaining credibility, it seems that the front-side fingerprint reader, three-stage alert slider and USB Type-C port are here to stay. The StyleSwap back covers are gone, though we don't doubt that OnePlus will continue to offer other types of cases.

We reached out to both CEO Pete Lau and Head Of Global Carl Pei regarding this render, but they both declined to comment. So far, the only official detail about the OnePlus 3 is the June launch window which Pei confirmed to CNET back at MWC. According to some benchmark and certification listings from last month, the metallic device is expected to come with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chipset, up to 6GB of RAM, Oppo's VOOC rapid-charging tech and Android 6.0.1. Evan Blass, formerly known as @evleaks, added that it'll feature an AMOLED screen and a 3,000 mAh battery.

Here's hoping OnePlus has saved us some genuine surprises for the launch in a few weeks' time; it'd be quite a shocker if the actual device looks rather different.